Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Adam Clarke
X.—REGENERATION.
THE soul must be regenerated, all guilt must be purged away, and the
heart must be cleansed. "But we have been regenerated, for we have been
duly baptized." Baptism is the sign of regeneration, but it is not the thing;
it is the "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace." You
must be born of water and of the Spirit. Water is the emblem of the
spiritual washing, but it is not the washing itself; "that which is born of
the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," is holy,
pure, and heavenly. If your water baptism had been spiritual regeneration,
you would have a heart cleansed from all unrighteousness, free from
pride, wrath, evil desires, bad tempers, &c. But you who depend upon this
circumcision of the flesh, have not this; and you know you never had it.
Therefore you want the blood that atones and purifies from all
unrighteousness. Your having the reformers for your fathers,—baptism
for the seal of your covenant,—your attendance on church and sacrament
for the foundation of your hope of glory, can raise you no higher than
Abraham as their father, circumcision as the seal of their covenant,
sacrifices and ceremonies, carefully offered and performed, as the
foundation of their hope of the continuance of the divine favour, did the
ancient Jews. On these things they depended; on such things you depend.
So deep is the stain, so radicated the habits of sinning, so strong the
propensity to do what is evil; that nothing less than the power by which
the soul was created, can conquer these habits, eradicate these vices, and
cause such a leper to change his spots, and such an Ethiop his hue. The
whole change which the soul undergoes in its conversion, is the effect of
a divine energy within. This the gospel promises, when it promises to
send forth the Holy Spirit. This mighty Spirit is given to enlighten,
convince, strengthen, quicken, and save; and the change which is effected
in the sinner's soul, in his habits, and in his life, is such as no natural
cause can produce; such as no art of man can effect; and such as no